Song Tan's Notes

Everyone picked and ate melons in the melon patch, enjoying both mental and physical satisfaction. The two melons they got didn't feel so cramped anymore.

After some back and forth, and some hesitation, everyone followed the suggestion and had an early dinner there.

Then the buses were in place, and the drivers, each carrying tofu, fermented bean curd, and other goods they had bought from the village, boarded the buses one by one.

And so, this noisy day has finally come to an end.

After discussing it with a few colleagues who seemed to have a chance, Chen Yuan specially spent a large sum of money—a thousand yuan—from the boss.

Well, a thousand yuan can't really buy anything at Lao Song's house, but they're shrewd!
Putting everything else aside, you can still make a few bags of vegetables from the garden, right? It looks like you have a lot and are good at managing your household, which is a plus!
So they followed the captain's lead. That summer, they'd gather handfuls of water spinach and juicy cucumbers, then bring home whole, sweet watermelons, along with various pickles and salted vegetables…

Aunt Zhang Hong shook her head in disbelief.

Who says men don't care? When they do care, they're incredibly attentive; it's just a matter of whether they're truly invested.

However, after everyone left, she still praised them all:
"You really make your auntie proud. Don't worry if it didn't work out this time. Let's stay calm and I'll organize another matchmaking event next time. Don't worry, this group won't be disbanded. Then the girls' colleagues and friends will spread the word, and there will be countless great opportunities!"

After a day of planning, several couples have already expressed interest. What else is there to doubt?
"Yes, yes, yes, that's right!"

Her repeated responses boosted Aunt Zhang Hong's confidence even more.

She thought to herself, "With my abilities, if I don't become an official, who will?"

The "official" waved his sleeve and went back to tidy up the beans.

Meanwhile, the security guards, who were scrambling around like peacocks displaying their plumage, couldn't stop and were being directed by Chef Jiang to clean up the kitchen again.

The entire farm was busy preparing for their wedding, and with so many people suddenly arriving, they had to help with the arrangements.

Many hands make light work. With everyone gathered, in less than half an hour, even the tables and chairs were sparkling clean.

Zheng Juan and Chen Xi, who had just confirmed their relationship, even had time to take a trip to the ranch and go on a date.

As for Secretary Zhu and Qi Lin...

Sigh! It's a bit disappointing that we couldn't announce their marriage at the conference. But it's probably for the best, so it doesn't make her seem too eager for political gain.

So, Party Secretary Xiao Zhu rode up on his secondhand electric scooter and said, "Come on, I'll go check on your dorm."

Seeing how they work up and down the mountain every day, it wouldn't do if they came home looking slovenly.

……

But this happy day wasn't happy for everyone.

First is Zhang Chen.

His smile shifted to his brother's face. Back at Wu Lei's house, facing his expectant aunt, the rich kid could only hesitate for a long time. Looking at his simple-minded brother still happily serving food, he sighed.

"Auntie, why don't we hold off on finding him a partner for the next couple of years?"

The young man's previous understanding has closed, and he can't seem to grasp things right now. Even if a good opportunity comes his way, he won't be able to seize it.

Since things have come to this, let's raise cattle first.

The disappointment in my aunt's eyes was clearly visible.

But for some reason, she also silently breathed a sigh of relief. As she ate, it suddenly dawned on her:

"Oh, actually I'm relieved that no one has chosen him. Otherwise, with all these things going on at home, if we were to get married, we wouldn't even have a place to live, and your uncle and I would be worried sick."

It's good that my silly son is like this.

Before, I was always drifting around, complaining that my family didn't give me enough. Now, I raise my own cattle and know that money is really hard to earn, so I feel more grounded.

We're saying this is more reliable than the empty talk of the past, right?
Zhang Chen also sighed.

He's no longer worried about his brother's insincerity; what he's worried about is that his brother seems a bit dim-witted!

While the Wu family accepted reality, Li Lanhua secretly sulked in Yunqiao Village.

"So many people, such a great opportunity! You used to think Tian Tian's education wasn't enough, but now, which of these people working in these companies didn't graduate from university? And you're still not taking the initiative? What are you planning to do?"

On one hand, she was annoyed: "Zhang Hong is really something. I specifically told her to create more opportunities for you, so why did she call you off the stage while you were hosting? If outsiders see that, they'll think you did something wrong."

No!

As she spoke, she couldn't help but walk out again: "I need to find her and ask her clearly."

"What are you asking?" Zhou Maozhu glanced at his son, then at his wife:

"Isn't that embarrassing enough? What's the point of asking? Do you think this is an emperor choosing concubines? If he doesn't like someone, he doesn't like them. I've heard that the security guards on the mountain are all girls who come up to him to cheer him on."

Zhou Tianyu felt a strange unease when he thought about it:

"Mom, you can't blame me entirely for this. These days, girls see things like abs and think that someone has a good physique, and then they want to date him."

Don't they realize that if they lose their self-discipline one day, they'll all become obese?
Besides, they have employers, and they wouldn't possibly look down on a mere security guard from the village.

What future is there in being a security guard? If he wanted to, he could apply for a security guard job in any residential area in the city, which would be closer to their workplace.

Upon hearing this, Li Lanhua was the first to hesitate.

Actually, being a security guard in the village is quite a promising career path.

Putting everything else aside, security guards don't seem to spend much money. Everyone knows that retired security guards have savings. Having savings is one thing, but with a monthly salary of several thousand, they basically have nowhere to spend it.

From this perspective, it is indeed more reassuring and reassuring than Tianyu's job.

Besides, when it comes to people working out to get in shape, at least they've been disciplined.

Where is their son? He comes back and sleeps until noon every day.

Yes, there's not much farm work to do on rainy days, and he's not good at it anyway.

But from this point of view, you can't just blindly apply your mother's filter.

But thinking about it, I was still unwilling and felt that Zhang Hong hadn't done things properly. Why did I have to go up and show off at the last minute?

Down the mountain, Aunt Zhang Hong passed by Old Song's house and made a special detour. Before she could even mention her day's harvest, she asked directly:
"Tan Tan, when will your house be finished? These young men and women are all getting on in years, and when it comes to marriage, they can't possibly buy a house in the city again, can they?"

If you buy the house, how are you supposed to work here? Wouldn't it be a complete waste of time and effort?
She knew that the security guards all had at least several tens of thousands of yuan in savings, so buying a house and getting married would be no problem for them.

Having a house in town doesn't seem to be a good thing in the marriage market.

But what if you bought a villa in town?

Most importantly, their city is small; it only takes forty minutes to get from the town to the city center! If you live in the city center, it takes more than half an hour to get from the new district to the old town, and if you encounter traffic jams, you don't know when you'll get there.

Aunt Zhang Hong is looking around step by step, and now the only thing she's worried about is how to get her child into kindergarten.

Her enthusiasm surprised Song Tan—it was a matchmaking event, not a mass wedding, wasn't it?
But this comes with immense pressure.

If everything is ready, but the housing issue forces all the employees to become single, then she is truly guilty.

“Okay,” she readily agreed, “I’ll urge them again!” The basic preliminary procedures were almost complete. There was nothing special to say about the construction company; it was the well-known X Construction in the area. The construction drawings had also been submitted for review and filing!

Now we're just waiting for the approval process.

Aunt Zhang blinked, clearly not quite familiar with the process of obtaining land for building a house.

But since you say the initial stages are mostly complete, then they're definitely mostly complete, it's just...

She asked in a low voice, "When I went to that matchmaking event in the city, I overheard the girls talking about whose house was the best in the building. The real estate agents kept saying that the best houses had good locations, such as the Jade Belt around the Waist and the Green Dragon Drinking Water Feng Shui pattern."

"Since you've built such a large area, shouldn't you consult a master for advice?"

Song Tan: ...

Although she does not follow the path of materialism, Aunt Zhang Hong, when you were renovating your own yard, you didn't seem so idealistic!

Perhaps her questioning look was too obvious, so Aunt Zhang Hong quickly emphasized again:

"Don't get me wrong. Your aunt is going to be a cadre in the future. I'm not suggesting you engage in any feudal superstitions. I was just asking casually, right?"

Then look at Lao Song's family:

“Ulan, look at this. I just asked casually, but we used to have to find an auspicious day for raising the roof beam.”

In short, she completed her task for the day and left Old Song's house in a hurry.

Otherwise, if I stay any longer, I'm afraid I might say something I shouldn't, which would damage my reputation as an official.

……

As soon as Aunt Zhang left, the Song family sat down together, all staring intently at Song Tan: "You've even come up with those blueprints for building that you were planning?"

“Yes,” Song Tan nodded, “If we don’t get the drawings out soon, it won’t pass the approval process.”

"Then why don't you bring it home to see?"

"What's so interesting about this? It's just the site plan, detailed structural drawings, and construction drawings..." Song Tan said casually.
"I don't understand it either, you guys will definitely have a hard time getting it back."

Besides, Secretary Zhu and Yun Duo keep an eye on this matter every day. Whenever there's a document, they bring it to her for her to sign. There are so many small characters, and she gets dizzy from signing them all.

Many things require the person to go in person, which is just a lot of trouble.

“How can they be the same?” Wulan became anxious. “You have to tell us what your building looks like first.”

What kind of building will it be?

It's pretty standard, nothing special.

They need to be seven stories or less, and have elevators. With over 600 acres, you can't build many buildings, and the apartment layouts are almost never smaller than 120 square meters.

The ground floor has a yard and a basement, the top floor has a terrace, and the middle floors are standard. Some are simply large single-level apartments.

We also need to invest in soundproofing; we can't let one alarm clock from upstairs or downstairs have such a significant impact.

Anyway, there are few people. Even if all the farm employees are there, they still don't take up more than 600 acres of land.

And then there are the regular villas, which aren't as fancy as those in luxury residential areas, but they're simple and inexpensive!

To be honest, before she built this house, she said she would sell it for a little more per square meter, but actually she would have made more money selling vegetables.

She explained the details here, and also sent a message to Yunduo, asking her to urgently send over those rough pictures for her to take a look at.

Sure enough, the data and the figures were nothing like the beautiful and impressive advertisement that Wulan Song and his colleagues had imagined.

The pictures are so small on the phone, I can't even see what the houses look like.

The couple remained silent for a long time.

Finally, Song Sancheng made the decision: "I'll go ask Dad tomorrow if the famous fortune teller in our area is still living in the village."

He also said to Song Tan, "Don't underestimate them. They even gave you your name."

Song Tan blinked: "My name was given to me by someone else—didn't you say that person was already in their fifties or sixties with a full beard back then? Are you sure that person is still around now?"

Ulan pondered for a moment and said, "Yes, it's really hard to say! You can't just ask anyone with half a cup of water for something this important. I'll ask my mother about it tomorrow."

The couple talked to themselves, and their plans for tomorrow were clearly already set.

Song Tan didn't know what to say—

Instead of relying on feng shui masters, why not go there yourself and draw some spiritual energy, set up a simple array, and you're guaranteed to eat well and sleep soundly until dawn? Isn't that better than any feng shui?

But it's no use telling my parents this.

After thinking about it, she decided to go find Lu Chuan.

When we entered the guesthouse, Lu Jing wasn't asleep or watching TV; instead, she was video chatting with someone on her phone, and she sounded quite excited.
"Oh my, you didn't know about that young couple at the meeting today? They were really interesting."

"Come on over! Come on over! I'm very respected in this village. If you come, I'll treat you to something delicious."

Well, so this one matchmaking event has made the whole village gossip a feast, right?

She didn't disturb the other person, but quietly went up to the top floor.

Today's blind date caused some delays. Lu Chuan was working on the detailed outline of tomorrow's novel's plot. When she came in, he only glanced up at her:
"It's been so humid lately. I made some ginger milk curd in the kitchen. Try it and see if it's good."

Song Tan was already familiar with the place, and when she went to the kitchen, she casually pushed the dehumidifier from the room over as well.

As soon as the drain pipe was inserted into the drain outlet, water gushed out, clearly indicating that another box of water had been collected in just half a day.

Absolutely! It rains every single day, and the air humidity is consistently around 80-90%. Without a dehumidifier, you feel sticky all over.

She took the ginger milk curd out of the refrigerator and then told Lu Chuan about the important thing that Wulan and Song Sancheng were going to do tomorrow:

"Hey, you novelists, do you also love writing about these metaphysical and fortune-telling things? Do you believe in this stuff?"

Lu Chuan paused in his typing, then looked at her with a half-smile:

"The blue roses on the balcony haven't withered yet. Do you think I believe in metaphysics?"

No matter how many genetic mutations a species undergoes, it is impossible for it to evolve into a perfect state all at once and maintain it stably, right?
Song Tan immediately fell silent.

After thinking for a moment, Lu Chuan solemnly replied:
“In the past, the Writers Association would arrange for us to go to certain places for field research or training. I did get to know a Taoist priest through a few people.”

"I agree with some of their ideas, and I feel that they are truly capable."

"Although the preliminary work for your property development is almost complete, some minor adjustments can still be submitted for revision—isn't the approval process quite lengthy? Should I try to find a way to invite him to take a look?"

Song Tan: ...

They talk about science, but they all actually believe this stuff. (End of Chapter)